MIT Spins New Tether For Walking on Asteroids

By Bill Christensen |
October 2, 2007 02:14am ET

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Diagram of the system for tethering an astronaut to an asteroid using circumferential ropes.

Credit: MIT/Ian Garrick-Bethell

MIT
researchers have devised a tether to help astronauts walk across asteroids on
future missions. The tether system would wrap all the way around the
asteroid. This really adds a new dimension to the term "asteroid
belt."

The MIT researchers,
Christopher Carr and Ian Garrick-Bethell, anticipate that astronauts will find it
difficult to work on the surface of an asteroid, due to the extremely low
gravity. An asteroid one kilometer in diameter would have a surface gravity
just 1/28000th that of the Earth; an astronaut could literally jump right off
the asteroid and not come back down.

Once tethered, however,
astronauts could walk across the surface in a more normal manner, and perform
physical chores like digging a small hole or pulling objects from the surface
more easily (see diagram).

The idea of wrapping a
tether all the way around an asteroid may seem like an extreme solution. However,
the loose composition of asteroids could make other strategies, like drilling
or attaching a permanent "bolt" or other hardware to the surface,
impossible to implement.